


California Horror Story (1992)

by 17603



Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Genre: Bad movies, Couch Sex, M/M, POV Second Person, Swearing, borderline cursed, dickheads to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23211988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/17603/pseuds/17603
Summary: He's kinda ugly and his jokes are awful, but you're kinda ugly and you're better at being mean than funny. It's all terrible and pathetic. Maybe you like that kind of thing.
Relationships: Mr. Brown/Mr. Pink (Reservoir Dogs)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 165





	California Horror Story (1992)

The first time you hang out with Mr Brown, sitting on a dilapidated couch in a gloomy basement with wood veneer walls and a concrete floor, you have no fucking clue why.

Well, you do know  _ technically _ why; he insisted you needed to see The Exorcist, promised there would be weed, and you were bored of your shithole apartment. But you don't know  _ actually _ why.

You also know you need to make some changes in your life so you never find yourself sitting on a brown plaid couch with a foul crocheted afgan draped over the back, itching at your bare neck while some dumbfuck you met the day before chatters in your ear.

As best you can figure, it happens like this:

After Joe's speech at the warehouse, after he dubs you Mr Pink, everyone mills around for a bit talking either to Joe or amongst themselves. You stay in your seat and light up a cigarette, running back through what you just got told, turning it over in your head. It seems like a good deal, straightforward, not too much room for fucking up as long as everyone is on the level, as long as everyone is professional about it.

"The fuckin Exorcist man, that movie put me off ever having kids," you zone back in to hear Brown say. He's sitting behind you.

"The little girl was possessed, you stupid fuck," Eddie replies, "it was the devil making her head spin around and shit, normal kids don't do that."

"I'm not taking any chances, fuckin kids, you never know what kind of shit they'll pull, you think they're all normal and then one day they're crawling backwards down the stairs."

Someone laughs, not like they think Brown's funny but like they think he's a moron. "No self-respecting woman would ever let your dumb ass fuck her anyway," Eddie says, footsteps like he's walking off.

"What'd you think," Brown says in your ear, suddenly very close behind you.

"I think Eddie's right, no self-respecting woman would fuck you." You don't look back at him, you don't want to encourage him, but he laughs and punches you in the arm and starts talking about the film like you give a shit.

Over by the wall, Mr Orange is talking to Mr White, hip cocked as he leans, hands gesturing through some story. White looks fucking enchanted, smiling indulgently as he lights up a cigarette.

"I haven't fucking seen it," you snap at Brown, finally glancing back. He pauses for about three seconds before launching into a monologue about why you should.

White offers Orange a cigarette and leans close to light it up. Orange peers up at him from under his hair.

Fucking obvious queers.

You tell yourself it's disgusting, and it kind of is because other people's love stories  _ are _ disgusting, the same way their dreams are boring and their voices are too loud.

What's really repulsive is that you wish you were the one leaning against the wall.

You're so distracted that you agree to hang out with Brown and watch the stupid goddamn film and that's how you ended up here, sinking into his couch and listening to him fucking talk through it.

His weed is really shit and he rolls joints too loosely, but he just shrugs when you tell him this. It's not exactly apologetic - more like he knows, like an  _ I just work here _ kind of thing.

Fair enough, you figure.

Still, it's not the worst evening you've had.

  
  


The second time happens because you accidentally agreed to it while you were slightly stoned. You could just blow him off, but you end up knocking on his basement apartment door only about half an hour after you said you would. He answers wearing baggy jeans and a stretched out Godzilla t-shirt, bare feet and hair lying damply flat like he just got out of the shower.

He offers you a drink, which you decline, and then talks through most of Creepshow 2. Out of the corner of your eye, you think you see him glancing at you. It's probably your imagination.

After the wooden Indian story, you ask where the toilet is.

"Upstairs," he shrugs, "or you can piss in the sink."

You run the tap to cover the sound and realise that this isn't a basement apartment, it's just a basement. There's a washing machine and a boiler tank and his stuff is sprinkled in around the normal stuff people keep in their basements, the soap flakes and weedkiller and drain unblocker. It's pathetic and you don't know why you're here, but, well, you are.

During the bit with the college kids on the raft in their swimsuits, you catch him glancing at you and you just know.

How fucking predictable.

  
  


You go back the third time because you're curious and bored, and you're watching Night of the Living Dead when suddenly he elbows you right in the goddamn face. You yell at him because what the fuck man, and that's how you find yourself sitting at a formica table in an egg-yolk yellow kitchen holding a can of cherry coke over your soon-to-be-bruised cheekbone while he hovers guiltily. There's a floral patterned fabric cover over the toaster and a repulsively coloured relief sculpture of a flock of ducks hanging on the textured wall. There are ceramic jars with more waterfowl painted on them in sickly shades of mustard. The linoleum pattern looks like it's moving on its own and your head spins. Maybe you've died and this is hell.

"Do you have a concussion?" Brown says, leaning down, hand reaching for your face like he's gonna try and peer into your eyes.

You swat him away. "Are you fucking serious? No, I don't have a goddamn concussion."

The rest of the movie is watched in relative silence, with odd mumbled commentary. As you're leaving, you tell him you hated it.

You didn't exactly, but you've got a headache.

  
  


The fourth time when he calls you, he promises he got some good weed. It sounds like an apology and it's not like you're doing anything else, so you go over and roll the joint properly and he puts on a goddamn cartoon for fucksake. You'd give him shit because not only is it a cartoon, it has fucking subtitles, but the weed is okay, and once the movie gets going it's pretty good, it's sure no Scooby Doo Saturday morning bullshit. Japanese people are fucking strange but you're on board with it, and he tells you about how it was adapted from a comic book series that you have to read backwards.

It's actually sort of interesting, or maybe you're just interested because you're kinda stoned and the strange simple faces look more alive than most people, they're actors but they don't exist, or maybe they do because someone made them. Someone made you, sketched you out in lines and you're moving on your own now, the lines are gone but you can see where they might be when you look at your hands.

You're kinda stoned.

"The eyes in manga were inspired by that Disney film, Bambi," he tells you. Your knees are touching and his leg is warm. "You remember that one? With the deer and the bunny and the skunk?"

"Yeah, Flower," you say, because you do, you remember being terrified because you were a pussy as a kid. You don't move your knee, and when you go home you don't dream of the blob of a person consuming the city while his friend screams like you joked you would; you dream of running through painted woods with footsteps behind you and the orange glint of fire casting your flickering shadow ahead.

  
  


The fifth time, you bring a six pack of Red Stripe and watch some weird French movie with badly timed subtitles and inexplicable tits. Both of you only get through one beer, and Brown is twitchy and silent and somehow more distracting for it. He keeps taking those sharp little breaths like he's about to say something, but then doesn't. About halfway through the film, he gets up to put on a sweatshirt, and sits back down so his leg is against yours.

It's pretty warm in the basement, it was warm all day, and when he says goodnight, you can see his hair sticking to his forehead. He apologises for the film and says he's got one you might like better, and you agree to it without really thinking.

  
  


That's how the sixth time happens.

It's been hot all day, you didn't sleep too well the night before, you've been restless but now you're just listless, and you slouch beside him through the ending of some weird grindhouse thing that you showed up in the middle of.

"You're early," he says, surprised. He's wearing the Godzilla shirt again and you really hope it's been washed.

You check your watch. "You said eight," you start, and then realise that he always says eight and you always arrive around nine.

When he puts on the tape he wanted you to watch, it's an old adventure film that you think you might have seen on TV as a kid, but maybe it was just something a lot like it. Actors all looked the same in those days, they all look the same in black and white, stories all play out the same. Your knees are touching again, ever so casual, easy to deny, always the same.

"Y'know how they did those models?" He asks you, and then starts explaining before you even answer, which is fine because you don't know. You sink deeper into the cushions as he tells you about someone named Harry, Harry something, Harry House maybe, skeleton swordfights and clay monsters and the clash of cymbals, then you wake up to a screen full of static snow with your head on his shoulder. You stare at each other in the blue-grey dark, colours bleached out, and you suddenly realise you have your hand on his leg.

You apologise automatically and then drive home, bleary and stiff-necked. It's always the same.

It didn't occur to you that you wanted it to be different.

  
  


The seventh time, you just show up. He answers the door in blue plaid pajama pants and a different Godzilla shirt and asks you if you've ever seen something called Frogs. He apparently just found a copy at Amoeba last week and it's supposed to be really fucking bad, like, amazingly bad. You haven't. The video case depicts a frog with a human hand hanging out of its mouth and the blurb on the back promises nothing but garbage, but it's somehow appealing. Brown switches off the overhead light and half-jumps-half-falls over the back of the couch, nearly kicking you in the face as he crashes down next to you.

You call him a dumbfuck and he laughs through his nose and you consider punching him, but laugh instead. The movie starts and two minutes in, you know it's irredeemably fucking atrocious. The remaining four cans of Red Stripe are still on the floor next to the couch, room temperature, and when you crack one open, it's revolting.

But you sit on the creaking couch next to the guy who won't fucking shut up about anything, watching a terrible movie about a frog plague and drinking warm beer, and somehow it's a good night, it's better than all the nights you told yourself were good.

Maybe you only like awful things.

You put your hand just above his knee and the sentence he was in the middle of, something about how frogs sound different in California and that's why movie frogs sound the way they do, trails off. The confusion doesn't last long, and you both end up making fun of the movie, pretending like your thighs aren't pressed together and your hand isn't now curled around his upper leg, so far up you can feel the fabric curving out into the baggy crotch of his pajamas.

He's a little bit manic, and you are too. There's an edge to the laughter.

He's kinda ugly and his jokes are awful, but you're kinda ugly and you're better at being mean than funny.

It's all terrible and pathetic.

Maybe you like that kind of thing.

  
  


The eighth time, the next day, you just show up without warning again. He's in his pajama pants again, and there are VHS tapes in ratty cardboard cases stacked all over the floor.

"I'm rethinking my genre organisation system," he tells you, "there needs to be more distinction between the different types of horror."

"You're a fucking nerd," you say, stepping over the piles to sit on the couch.

"You called Akira a cartoon, you compared it to fucking Bugs Bunny, you uncultured fuckweasel."

You grin at him. "Come on, how much better would the ending have been if they did the  _ th-th-that's all folks _ thing?"

He sniffs. "You might as well draw a dick on the Sistine Chapel ceiling."

"Why bother," you say, picking up a case off the top of the nearest pile, "Michaelangelo already drew a bunch of dicks up there."

"I didn't see that episode of Ninja Turtles," he murmurs, and you're about to yell at him when you realise he's joking, he's smirking at you, or perhaps just smiling.

Whichever it is, you want to kick him, but you just roll your eyes.

You end up watching something called Zombi 2, and it's pretty easy to follow despite the fact that you haven't seen Zombi 1 and don't speak Italian. Your hand winds up back on his leg and his arm slides from the back of the couch to rest across your shoulders, the smooth skin of the inside of his upper arm sticking to your neck. He's bigger than you are, maybe five inches taller, broader across the shoulders. You're pretty sure he's younger, though you wouldn't want to bet on how much.

His leg is warm through the thin cotton of his pajama pants, and his voice stumbles when you experimentally rub your fingertips up and down, but he doesn't stop talking. His hand lightly curls around your shoulder, the outside edge of his thumb almost touching your neck.

He's in the middle of explaining what a Video Nasty classification is when your hand accidentally drifts too far up and you definitely touch his dick, just for a split second before you both realise and leap apart. Two stacks of carefully organised tapes clatter across the concrete and he doesn't even glance in the direction of the noise, just stares at you.

Fuck.

"I don't usually skip right to that," you say, weak, force yourself to smile like you could make a joke of it. He's sitting at the other end of the couch, knees drawn up and staring at you like an absolute fool, mouth half open.

"Skip," he says, "skip what?"

You are suddenly irrationally furious, how dare he play dumb, how fucking dare he. "The fuck you think, you fucking idiot," you snarl, crawl forward, grab him by his pointy chin and kiss him on the mouth.

He freezes for about three seconds then pushes eagerly into it, and it's all ticking along fine until you nudge his legs apart and shift in closer, hand going for the hem of his t-shirt. He flinches as soon as your fingertips brush over his stomach, leaning back and away, pop-eyed in the flickering dark.

"What," you ask, "what," even though you're pretty sure you know exactly what. "What is it, man?"

He doesn't answer.

"You wanna stop?"

"Uhm," he says, shakes his head, mouth opening and closing a like a goddamn fish. You take pity on him for only partly selfish reasons, reach out slow to rest a hand on each shoulder, rub under his collarbones with your thumbs.

"You ever done this before?"

He glances down and you know what the answer's gonna be even before he mutters "only with girls."

"I ain't a fuckin girl," you tell him, "so if you're looking for a girl, you better look somewhere else."

He nods. You can feel his heartbeat under your hands, palms almost on his chest. Not a good enough answer, you need to hear it out loud.

"You want a girl, or you actually want this?"

"This," he says, barely audible, and you believe him because he doesn't look away, because his legs unfold on either side of you so you're kneeling between then, bracing yourself against his chest so you can lean forward and kiss him. One of the advantages to kissing him is that you don't have to look at that awful little tuft of hair under his lip.

Another is that he makes a soft strange noise, barely audible above the TV, and immediately kisses you back.

"I've never kissed anyone with a mustache before," he says when you break apart, head cocked like the world's most punchable labrador, and the only things you want to do are jab him in the throat or kiss him again.

You go for the kiss, at least this time. He's not bad at it, he's got no idea what to do with his hands and just awkwardly pats at your shoulders, but he's not trying to jam his tongue into your mouth or anything. Rubbing your hands over his upper body utterly fails as a hint, so without pulling back, you undo your shirt buttons and shrug it off, then grab his wrists and put his hands on your bare chest. As soon as his palms are flat on your skin, all hesitation vanishes. They slide up to your collarbones, then down to curve around your ribs, thumbs smoothing outwards from your sternum.

"Jesus," he says, "what are you, a hundred pounds soaking wet?"

"Go fuck yourself," you mutter as his hands settle at your waist, pulling you closer. He kisses you again, first on the neck and then on the mouth, someone on the TV is screaming in Italian and you absolutely do not give a fuck, you run your hands through his hair and bite his lower lip and wonder if he'd freak out if you touched his dick again.

  
  


He does not freak out.

  
  


He does get tangled trying to take off his t-shirt, and then stares at you when you shove him down flat and perch across his legs, running your hands over his bare torso, through the hair on his chest and stomach. Maybe it's just the fact that your brain isn't getting enough blood to it, but when he grins up at you, you don't want to punch him, you just grin back.

  
  


It's nothing special; you grind against each other until you're both panting then you jerk him off, he whines and thrashes and pulls you down to kiss but ends up just breathing hard against your mouth as he comes. He tries jerking you off while you're straddling him, gets frustrated with the angle and rolls onto his side, arranging you so you're lying against him, chest to back, and that works a lot better. He kisses your neck and jaw and ear and you aren't quite game to ask him to bite you, but you come pretty soon anyway, one of his hands around your dick and the other infuriatingly close to your nipples, arching back against him.

  
  


Sometime during all that, the tape's spooled out and the TV's just playing crackling static. It's just too far away to reach, you have to get up to switch it off. When the room's clicked dark, fingers close around your hipbones and pull you back down onto the couch, arms wrap around you, and you twist back to kiss him. He starts talking as soon as you stop, something about how he never realised how hard it is to jerk off from in front, the angle's all wrong, those guys in porn man, they must practice, but you're warm and comfortable and not fucking listening anyway.

  
  


You wake up in the half light to the sound of footsteps. Brown is lying behind you, one arm over your waist and the other under your neck, bare chest sticking to your back and face in your hair. You're sort of wearing pants - your underwear is pulled up but your jeans are undone and hanging somewhere below your ass, and there's a hand spread over your lower abdomen, just above the waistband of your boxer shorts.

Grit-eyed, you shift to peer over the arm of the couch. An older lady in pink and green exercise gear gives you a little wave from where she's sorting whites from one basket to another, and Brown wriggles, huffs breath into your hair and grinds his dick against your ass.

"Don't you boys mind me," she says, "I'm just putting on a lights load before I scoot off to my walking group."

You make a noise that is mostly consonants, not yet awake enough to panic.

"The smog advisory is low so we're going to do some hills, really get the blood pumping," she continues while you stare in horror and her son's hand slides lower. "After that old man keeled over and died during my jazz aqua-robics class I haven't been able to go back to the pool, they didn't even put more chlorine in, the instructor just switched to a slower song."

She slams the door of the washing machine and the sound of water rushing through pipes fills the basement. Brown mumbles something into your hair. If your entire body wasn't frozen, you might scream.

"When he wakes up, tell him to hang the laundry out," she says on her way past, "it's a beautiful day."

The basement door bangs shut and you flop back down. Your heart's hammering and your skin's all hot and you want to roll over and punch Brown in his stupid sleeping face, but you don't.

Maybe you don't even really want to.

Anyway, that's the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> The Exorcist (1973)  
> Night of the Living Dead (1968)  
> Creepshow 2  
> Akira  
> Jason and the Argonauts  
> Frogs (1972)  
> Zombi 2


End file.
